Our first hotel of this holiday was the Jetwing Lake near to Dambulla.  A crisp, clean and modern hotel, it is set within nature and is run to a high ecological standard.  This is high season, but a closed airport and a high volume of local cancellations meant that we had this 94 bedroom hotel all but to ourselves; times are as tough for the travel industry here as elsewhere but we really felt for the staff as much as what it must mean financially for the Jetwing Group.  To the latter’s credit, the staff have been retained across the various functions and the hotel is still maintained to exemplary standard – whether it be cleanliness, super cuisine, building and grounds maintenance or whatever.  With so few guests to care for (18 on our first night, about half occupancy on Saturday night with locals coming for a weekend away, and 10 on our final night), those who we spoke with admitted that they much prefer the buzz of a busy hotel to care for.

The photograph above was the view from our bedroom balcony, and in the gallery below, the cake a surprise arranged by Rennie for our Korean friend Sung; this was to celebrate marrying his Japanese fiancee Hiromi by video broadcast the Wednesday prior because she cannot yet travel to Colombo from Japan nor he and his children travel to her.  She briefly joined the dinner by video too, and we much look forwards to meeting her in person.  

The poolside photos are of a satisfied Rennie after completing her self-imposed challenge of swimming 11 lengths the first day, 22 the second and then 33 on the third.  Accompanied by a young guard of honour for the final stretch, she actually swam 36 lengths instead of 33 “just to be sure”  she’d swum the 2.5 kilometres that she intended.  Infact, with the pool being a long one at 74 metres, she had swum 2,664 metres – and 5,106 metres in total.  Bravo My Girl!

The waving hands are of Sung, Surang and Teji wishing us safe travels as we commenced our departure a few minutes before theirs.

Steve